Six-Fold Sacred Path
of the Honeybee
science sacred history mystery arts activism
Sacred
What is Sacred?
We feel that to define something as Sacred is to recognize that it represents
'principles which shall not be violated.'
When we work with bees, we become more aware of Nature,
including the many other companion species of pollinators, plants, and elements.
Many people fall completely in love with the bees which is understandable since the whole language of the species is one of perfume, love, and collaboration.
After spending time studying and learning from the bees we begin to see that even their basic scientific nature consistently points toward awe-inspiring facts. The honeybee's ability to increase pollination of food, flowers, and trees; their miraculous production of honey; their remarkable ability to evolve and adapt to serve plants; the nurturing collaboration of an inter-generational superorganism, all point toward not only magnificent information but archetypal generosity and spiritual modeling as well
This knowledge precedes modern science and has become a template for spiritual thought the world over. The long association honeybees have had with Sacred marriage rites, blessing ways, rites of passage, and religious rituals is historically referenced in myth, symbols, history, and re-membered herstory the world over. The deep understanding, intimacy, and cooperation humans have developed with this humble insect (and her related apis cousins) inform cultural development throughout his/herstory and around the globe.
Welcome to
the Six-Fold Sacred PAth of the Honeybee
The College of the Melissae is charting new territory as we weave together
the many elements of the study in a Six-Fold Sacred Path of the Honeybee:
Science, Sacred, History, Mystery, Art-Medicine, & Activism
The study of Honeybee Culture in its true depth is, by its nature, rich in history and herstory, ethics, animism, and earth values. Waking up to the depth of human: bee relations is about receiving direct communication from the Earth herself. This is one of the greatest discoveries many people are experiencing when they begin to work with Apis Mellifera. Once you begin to walk down the Six-Fold Sacred Path of the Honeybee know that the world will open up to you in a whole new way.
Bee prepared to bee delighted, bee-soted, and bee-loved!
Human beings have been working with bees for tens of thousands of years.
People are finding their way to the bee as if drawn or bidden. We become enraptured and delighted, curious!
Together we will explore 1001 tales of myths and dreams and scientific rabbit holes.
Watch the shift happen when the layers unfold into a map.
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Ancient mythologies take on a new dimension when we begin to understand
the relevance of our founding cultural symbol systems and
the effect our cultural paradigm has on shifting the solution in this world during the Anthropocene Epoch.
Science
We will give you an overview so that you are informed and can develop your own way within the field. We want you to understand the science and the range of information available and encourage you to create your own path.
Modern methodologies, especially breeding, migratory and mono-crop pollination, and beekeeper applied chemicals are creating havoc within the species. Visiting other countries shows that American apiculture is one of the weakest systems in the world. Agri-chemicals, migratory pollination, and the annual almond pollination event have created a weaker species of bees whose numbers are only supported through replacement. This effectively creates an addiction dynamic. In other words, the bees survive through chemical dependency and re-queening.
In the current agricultural paradigm, bees are often treated as a product and the industry itself is entrenched in the “Better Living Through Chemistry” paradigm. Fortunately, the trend is toward understanding the intrinsic wisdom of the bee, including Her own genetic ability to adapt and transform into a healthy creature. However, genetics alone are not going to self-heal the species. We need to apply an improved epigenetic environment in order to support the natural evolution and repair of the bee species.
Health and medicine, diet, and agriculture have all begun to develop new understandings within their fields. Many people are seeing the wisdom in reducing processed foods, increasing food diversity, and avoiding chemicals in their diets for the good of their health. Organic farming, permaculture, and biodynamics have begun to enter into the language of agriculture as healthier to the crops and the earth, water, and other animal species. These philosophies are contributing to changing our relationship to living with bees.
We are beginning to see that what is good for the bee is good for humanity.
The College of the Melissae teaches toward intuitive style and asks you to explore communication with the bee. When we handle bees through listening, scent, and timing, minimize intrusion and encourage an excellent forage environment, we are doing something that is largely outside the current Western methodologies.
Surprisingly, this perspective is considered audacious within the industry, but thought leaders and people everywhere have begun to show, through scientific study that this path may become a major trend and solution to the current issues bees are facing.
Understanding science and intimately interacting with the Honeybee can help us
to deeply comprehend the sublime and divine nature of the Honeybee.
From a meditative and embodied experience, we are able to heal our relationship and
re-develop the language of our interactions with this remarkable teacher.
Ultimately we offer this information so that we can develop a thorough understanding of the language and culture within the Apicultural world and perhaps you will choose to participate in the growth of a new trajectory within the realm of beekeeping that is called Bee-Centricity. This is a style of living with Bees that keeps their needs and Bee-ing at the center of all our interactions. We seek consensual relationships and interplay instead of "beekeeping."
To the ones who are open, the experience of living with bees and developing deeper understandings of their Archetypal and Sovereign Nature will forever change them.
We explore the Scientific as it leads us toward the greater principles of the
Sovereign Nature of the Honeybee as a Vanguard for all pollinators and our
Animistic understanding of her as one of Nature's Greatest emissaries.
HISTORY/HERSTORY
We examine the history of beekeeping and find ourselves continually spiraling to and from the Herstory.
We recognize the Myths of the Sacred Bee cultures need to be explored and told in the voice of the
pre-Apollon Oracle. We share these myths as a way to re-enculturate our people and follow the plethora of ancient Sacred Bee cultures throughout the world.
Scholars everywhere are waking up to the information embedded in mythologies, symbols, and archetypes.
This is re-awakening suppressed knowledge of the Divine Feminine and earth-based, ancestral wisdom and knowledge. We will call this HERstory. HERstory as the perspective of the planet, her oracles, the righteous expression of oppressed knowledge. That which is deeply embedded in all that we are today. A perspective that unites the whole world and every living thing, without hierarchy, in total. A way of belonging that can be traced to ancestral source, without fail, for every single one of us. A way of being that lies at the center of all human cultures.
These historical references are not simply for amusement, but can potentially offer us an integrated return to right relationship with the Natural World. Traditional Western scholarship often isolates purpose and material, asking for a documented structure that is based on peer-reviewed acceptance. This fails Herstory since the lense of documentation is based on a specific cultural reference and is not a purely scientific process nor can it possibly begin to account for the stories of suppressed, forgotten, conquered, or subjected peoples.
The College of the Melissae takes an Anthropological approach to History. History becomes one lense and Herstory asks for an additional approach. Re-Searching stories, songs, ancient text, symbols written on temple walls in a fresh context changes everything. Let's take another look at every single thing we can find out about the Honeybee. It is an endless supply of divine animistic reference. We find them at the beginning of civilization, and in living spiritual texts, myths, and forgotten temple walls.
Culture is a river, things float down it and change in the process. The symbols written in time are often based on the knowledge of generations and the interpretation cannot exist only in a library. The College of the Melissae examines ancient symbols systems from an intuitive place and invites students to re-member from their own inner-knowing while using revolutionary scholarship as touchstones in this journey.
History is one thing, Herstory is another. By re-examining who we are, where these ideas are coming from, re-exploring and discovering absolutes and Truths, and re-creating our own mythology, perhaps we can help seed a better relationship with nature for our collective future.
College of the Melissae
